


Momentary Lapse

by Suaine



Category: Veep
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 21:38:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2826968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suaine/pseuds/Suaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan has a crisis of faith.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Momentary Lapse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ohtempora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohtempora/gifts).



They were five weeks into Selina's presidency when Dan realized the horrifying truth. He dropped into the couch in the bull pen, his phone dangling precariously from his weakened fingers.

Amy raised her eyebrow at him, mouthing a question. He couldn't hear her over the rush in his ears. “This is it,“ he said. “This is all we're ever going to do. Mop up the messes we make and scramble to beat Selina's bad press.”

“How is this news to you, Dan?” Amy gave him that incredulous look, the kind that made him want to roll his eyes and stick his tongue out.

Dan ran his fingers through his hair, took a breath and glanced at the office rats spinning in their little wheel. “I don't know, Amy, maybe I thought at some point we were going to do something useful with all this.”

Amy laughed. It didn't sound particularly kind. “Oh, right, because suddenly you have a conscience.”

“I was going to change the world,” he said, and somewhere deep down he believed it.

Looking up, he saw some strange, wistful expression cross Amy's face. Almost like she understood. They held their gaze for a moment until they both turned away, shuddering at the potential for sincerity.

Amy pointed an angry finger at him. “This wasn't a moment, do you understand? We're not doing that.”

Dan nodded, feeling slightly better about the whole business with his sudden onset of human emotions.

+

Amy Brookheimer was once a girl with a dream, like all little girls had them. She was going to be special. She was going to be someone.

Now she was someone's manager. Unlike the sports industry though, Amy never got to be the star before she became a faded has-been. And that was alright. It was what it was and if she could turn Selina into the fucking president of the United States, that meant she was a fucking wizard.

She scowled at her bathroom mirror and poked at the skin under her eyes. At some point they had been simple bags, now they looked like a mountaineer's backpack. The craggy swollen landscape of her face was a testament to Selina's ascension. Sleep was for the weak.

Dan dragged himself in, all rumpled and sleepy and adorable. It was an act as much as anything Dan ever did, but it was a private performance. He'd never let anyone see him this shabby, not even his conquests.

Amy tried not to smile. “It's always fascinating how you can turn that,” she gestured at his entire appearance, “into something resembling human.”

Dan snorted. “Admit it, you're jealous of my many talents, including my superiority in personal grooming.”

Rolling her eyes, Amy left the bathroom, but not without slapping his butt on the way out. “I guess if you're not naturally beautiful it helps to be really good at faking it.”

Dan stuck his head out of the door to yell after her. “That's not the only thing I'm good at faking.”

Amy laughed. “And don't I know it.”

+

Amy watched Dan flirt outrageously with the new personal assistant to the Junior Senator of Kentucky, while listening to some kid from IT explain to her on the phone how to get back into the system she'd supposedly locked herself out of. It wasn't treason, exactly, to get into the man's private correspondence. It was merely helping him out of a mess that would make the entire party look bad.

What kind of stupid asshole kept video his gay affair with a very young White House staffer on his work computer, seriously?

“Sometimes I wonder why we're doing this job.”

On the way out, Dan flashed a shit-eating grin and a scrap of paper at her. “Still got the moves.”

Amy snorted. “I'll be taking that, no poaching the innocent little farm girls before they've had a chance to learn the game.”

Dan grinned. “I could teach her the game all night long.” Two tittering staffers turned their gazes away as they passed, their conversation clearly stopped to listen in on them.

Amy punched Dan in the arm, maybe a little more than was necessary.

+

They'd both agreed months ago that no one could know. Things like this, fragile and vulnerable, they didn't do so well on the Hill.

Amy traced her fingers over Dan's closed eyes, the bridge of his nose. He looked like a normal person, maybe even a little bit pretty. If she ever told him he'd never let her hear the end of it. “Did you mean it?”

Dan sighed. “It was a momentary lapse.”

“In public.”

He turned on his side, facing her fully and with open eyes. “I'm not a complete sociopath, you know. I do have some morals.”

Amy smiled, feeling the weight of her own beating heart. “You never met a moral you didn't want to bend out of shape.”

“I'm ambitious, there's a difference.”

“Is there? The things I've done for Selina, especially the last couple of weeks, I don't know if that's worth it.”

Dan sat up, leaning closer to Amy so that she could barely make out his features anymore. “Do you think Selina is a good president?”

Amy blinked. “Why are you asking me that?”

“Do you think she's better for the country, for the future, than whichever dick is snapping at her heels right now?”

Amy searched Dan's eyes. “I guess, yeah. I guess I do believe she's the best person we've got right now.”

Dan grinned. “Good, because I need you to remind me of that every once in a while.”

+

Sometimes, someone would ask one of them about their sex life, if they're dating anyone, that sort of thing. Amy tended to say, “sure, I'm fucking Dan every night, it's awesome,” with that dry tone that told everyone to fuck off. No one ever believed her.

The cafeteria staff always gave Dan an extra yoghurt on Tuesdays because that's when Amy had her lunch date with a hunky reporter from UpHill Beat Dot Com. They thought he was pining.

They went home with different cars, at different times, on different routes – for a while. No one ever actually wondered and pretending seemed like such a hassle. No one would believe it, anyway, except for Helga in the kitchen, who had a romantic's heart.

+

Dan watched Amy sleep, not in a creepy way obviously. Just sometimes there were too many things in his head, too many lost opportunities to do something. He'd rather watch her than his phone as he waited for some piece of news to come in, and that was... something.

“How weird is it that sometimes I feel like you're my conscience?”

Amy groaned. “Oh my god, it's four in the morning.” She didn't open her eyes, just sort of waved her hand around and nearly hit him in the face. “Do your soul searching when it's not dark as a dog's balls outside.”

Dan laughed. “And that's why I love you most of all.”

“Shut up and go to sleep, idiot.”

Amy smiled in her sleep sometimes, smiled when she said the word idiot into her pillow like a secret. And Dan was more than okay with that.


End file.
